Greenspan’s Latest Mistake: Tax Hikes

J.D. Foster / September 16, 2010

The recent global financial panic and recession had many authors. Millions of individuals and businesses made bad decisions about investing and debt. Scores of big shots like Dick Fuld, former CEO of now defunct Lehman Brothers, gambled big and lost bigger. And then there were those few who were in a class by themselves. Those whose actions cannot be said to have directly caused the meltdown but contributed to it far above all others.

Chief among those few are former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who presided over an overly lax monetary policy and somnambulant financial regulatory oversight to sow many of the seeds of the recent disaster. This is the same Alan Greenspan who now says we need to raise taxes. At least in bad judgment he’s consistent.

No, he isn’t. As he said before a gathering at the Council of Foreign Relations, “I am in favor for the first time in my life of raising taxes.” To paraphrase a now-famous line from Senator John Kerry (D–MA), he was against the tax hikes before he was for them. (more…)